More AuH2O.

A civil right is a right that is asserted and therefore protected by some valid law…. There may be some rights—“natural,” “human,” or otherwise—that should also be civil rights. But if we desire to give such rights the protection of the law, our recourse is to a legislature or to the amendment procedures of the Constitution. We must not look to politicians, or sociologists—or the courts—to correct the deficiency.

So much genius here; for example, the word “valid” just sitting there in that first sentence. But the real marvel is the assertion that if we want to change the law we have to go to the legislature or amend the Constitution, not to politicians. Of course, how you go to the legislature or amend the Constitution without going to politicians is left as an exercise for the reader.

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I just think it’s clever of Goldwater/Bozell to drop that in there, implying that some of these laws we have on the books might be invalid, without going into any detail on it. Wink wink, you know which laws I mean.

Wait, which laws do you mean? Sorry, not being intentionally a dick, just wondering– sounds like there’s a context here that I’m not picking up on. I thought you were complaining that he was smuggling in some normative natural-law style criterion for validity in under false pretenses, whereas I thought he’s imagining some positivistic formal test for valid law. But given the source…this probably isn’t what he has in mind.

It is disduised circular reasoning to say that a “civil right” is asserted by a valid law. What’s a valid law, you ask? A law that asserts a right that’s not civil. All things are defined by negative opposition, kthxbye!

Isn’t there a bit of political tradition, mostly conservative I suspect, of distinguishing “statesmen” from mere “politicians”? I remember it coming up in Parkman’s article on universal suffrage (and how it’s a failure), at least. And I remember hearing someone give a talk on Kissinger who said Kissinger made the same sort of distinction.

In practice, a statesman is probably just a politician the speaker likes.